


The Atrocities of Ivan Zakhaev

by Ironstrange_ig



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: 1st person pov, Bittersweet Ending, Brief animal death, But he’s not a good person, Canon-Typical Violence, Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, Evil Character, Feels, Gen, Ivan feels regret, Ivan is on his deathbed when writing this, M/M, Minor Character Death, Morally Grey Character, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:35:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 8,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23395627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ironstrange_ig/pseuds/Ironstrange_ig
Summary: This is a journal written by a barbarian named Ivan Zakhaev. He has done many bad things in his life that he deeply regrets, but he will never be able to redeem himself or earn forgiveness. He knows that he will never be a good person, he continues to do bad things despite knowing they’re wrong.This character is undeniably evil. But I wanted to write a story with a protagonist that is both evil beyond redemption and humane at the same time. Lots of feels, death, and violence. 1st person POV
Kudos: 2





	1. The beginning of a plague

**Author's Note:**

> My goal when creating Ivan was to create a villain that was not just evil because he enjoys hurting and killing. I wanted a character with complex motives and feelings, but that doesn’t only do evil stuff because someone else forces him to do them. He does a lot of bad stuff and even though he regrets them he is not treated as a good person. He continues to do bad things despite his regret. Graphic depictions of animal death in this chapter, get ready to cry.

My name is Ivan Zakhaev. I am a Dragonborn descending from an ancient species of green dragon. I am 70 years old at the time of writing this and I have committed many atrocities that are inexcusable. This is just a fact of life. I have not at any point expected forgiveness for the things that I have done and the people that I have hurt. I have decided to write this not because I want people to know that I regret what I’ve done, but because I believe that my victims deserve to be remembered as people that were not killed in an act of justice, but targeted by someone who did not know how to cope with his own trauma. In multiple points of the many years I struggled I could have stopped doing the things I did. Those multiple points I decided to continue doing bad things for various unjustified reasons. At no point in my life was I ever a good person or did I ever truly act like I was a good person. Even at the best points of my life I was morally grey at best and that is just an unfortunate fact of life. Let’s continue past my introduction. 

I should first start by explaining the history of my people’s violence. It started hundreds of years ago with my farthest reaching ancestors. They created a tribe known as the Agkistrodon. There is no other way to describe my tribe than as a plague. In the Agkistrodon there was no room for compassion. For your victims or your family. To survive you must kill and to kill you must be unfeeling. They spread like plagues often do, destroying or infecting everything they came into contact with. Their violence knew no bounds and they had very little loyalty for their own people. If anyone, even a child, showed weakness or compassion they were either beaten bloody or killed. There was nothing for them but conquest and bloodlust. They taught their children to thirst for murder, to not question whether or not the victim deserved it. To feel nothing but rage and feel satisfied only when bathing in the blood of perceived enemies. For years they were a united front that was unavoidable and unstoppable. Though the tribe has drifted apart and often functions in smaller groups, the culture of violence and bloodshed remains. I too fell victim to their disease and because of that many innocent people have lost their lives or their family. 

I was born to a family of four, myself a sister and our parents. My mother does not deserve to be named. She does not deserve to be remembered. She had not ever shown compassion in her entire life, and I’m not sure that she was capable of such emotions. She beat her children regularly and made us fight. Often it was each other, and sometimes it was whatever creature we had shown the most kindness. My sister was four years my senior and fell victim to the disease long before I did. She did not hate our parents for making us this way, for forcing us to kill the innocent and worship the damned. She enjoyed the hunt just as much as the monsters that created us. She saw me as weak, as most of my kind did. I showed too much compassion for my victims, begged my parents to stop hurting the innocent. My light was quickly snuffed out by the age of three. The cruel hand of my mother demanded it, and she forced me to sacrifice every single thing I cared about in a bid to rid me of remorse. I will never forget the day that I finally lost hope for being different from my family. 

I was around two years old at the time I met my first companion. He was an ugly thing, a huge cat with dirty fur and holes in his ears. But I loved him and I named him Hope. He was the only creature I showed kindness for a very long time. He was the light in the darkness, and I never experienced love from anyone but him. Our friendship lasted for a few months. I gave him scraps of food in the dead of night and let him drink water from my cup. Although I had to hide him away from my family, it was freeing to know that I finally had something that loved me genuinely. 

That ended when my mother discovered him. I was devastated by her fury, cried when she beat me bloody. For once in my life I had felt genuine grief because of my mother’s actions.  
That night she brought Hope into the house. He was clearly terrified of her and looked to me for support. She thrust him towards me and said in no uncertain terms “you will kill this beast and you will enjoy it. You will watch the light die in its eyes and you will feel nothing but satisfaction” 

The words haunted me for years afterwards. I begged her to let him go, promised her that I would never see Hope again if she just spared his life. She slapped me and thrust Hope into my arms. At that moment I wanted nothing more than to run away with my best friend and never look bad. “I’m sorry” I whispered as I wrapped my hands around his throat. Tears streamed down my face in an undeniable sign of weakness and remorse. His eyes begged me to stop, he whimpered in pain as his air was cut off by my hands. The way he looked at me in that moment, I knew that he didn’t blame me. Somehow he understood that I didn’t want him dead, that I did it because my mother told me too. I begged for his forgiveness and he gave it to me. That was the only time in my entire life that I wished to be forgiven. That I felt unspeakable regret for what I was doing and would have rather died than been in that moment. Unlike the other times I had caused pain I couldn’t detach myself. Those were my hands killing him, my hands snuffing out the light of the only creature that had ever cared for me. I know that I will never see him again. I’m going to be eternally punished for my deeds and I doubt he will want to visit me after what I had done to him. I didn’t deserve his love, yet he openly gave it to me. For days after I cried uncontrollably no matter the consequences. I cried and screamed. The only time I was silent was when my mother beat me into unconsciousness. After an entire week of mourning I came to the realization that there was nothing I wouldn’t do to get revenge. No boundary I wouldn’t cross to get justice for Hope and every other innocent creature tortured and killed at the hands of my people. That day was undoubtedly the mark of my descent into madness. My heart was hardened and cold and the Ivan that had once experienced love was detached and broken away from the Ivan that killed. The Ivan who would stop at nothing to see every living member of his tribe dead and burned to ashes for the crimes they committed. The Ivan that loved was as good as dead for many years, and there was nothing anyone could do to save him. I was incapable of feeling anything but the lust for revenge. But I never forgot my best friend and the only thing I ever loved.


	2. The first of many willing misdeeds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ivan spent multiple years getting his revenge. It wasn’t simple, and staying alive wasn’t easy. But despite that he continued on. He kept the promise to Hope, dropping his mission no matter how far away he was at the time or how little money he had to travel with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There’s a lot of violence in this chapter so watch out.

After the death of Hope, I locked away my emotions entirely. I didn’t enjoy death, I didn’t enjoy life, I simply existed. Often I dissociated when I was forced to kill an innocent being but sometimes I couldn’t detach myself and felt every second of the torture. Those days were the worst, where I questioned if I could ever be redeemed. I soon discovered the answer to that question is no, and despite having made an effort to do good things eventually I don’t think it lessens the burden I carry. 

I lived like this for exactly a year. On the anniversary of Hope’s death I visited the grave I had made in the forest and sat beside him. “Today is the day,” I promised to him in that quiet moment. It almost felt peaceful to experience being near him, even if he wasn’t really there. “Today is the day I start my revenge. You will have justice, and I will have justice. From this day on I will kill every single member of my tribe. There will be no one left to cause pain. No longer will my family hurt the innocent” I whispered into the still air. I felt distinctly watched, like Hope knew I would come and waited for me to visit him. I vowed to myself that I would visit every year and to this day I keep that promise. The only promise I’d really fulfill, because when I killed my tribe I left one person to continue the legacy of violence. Myself. After a few hours spent in silence I quietly apologized to Hope’s grave. I whispered how much I missed him, how much I prayed that he would be there in the moments between my death and my eternal punishment. His grave was hardly marked, but I had the memory of the area burned into my soul. I sat there until the sun went down before I wished him a peaceful afterlife and headed home to kill my parents and sister. 

The brief few minutes that I watched my parents die was the first time I felt any degree of positive emotion since Hope died. I felt satisfied. It was also the first time I had ever enjoyed violence. I feel as though that was what stained my soul, not the violence I was forced to do but the violence I chose to commit. They begged for mercy and forgiveness as they bled out, but I know that they only did so because they were afraid. They didn’t want to die. Their pleas burned a fire in my soul, spurred on the evil satisfaction I got from finally getting revenge against those who hurt me. 

When my sister came in she was horrified. “How could you kill our parents? They did everything for you. They taught you to be strong” she said to me. I knew in that moment that although my sister hadn’t personally harmed me, that she could not continue living. “I’m sorry sister” I lied easily. I can’t say that her death was particularly merciful, but it was certainly less painful than that my parents received. I decapitated her with one swing of my axe. I have that axe to this day, stained with the blood of both friend and foe. It sits in the corner of my room, judging me even as I lay on my deathbed. 

That axe has witnessed a lot, as you will soon come to understand. It has been used against the innocent, the mindless, the evil. It has much more meaning to me than just a weapon. It is an anchor to my sins, a testimony to all the harm I’ve done and the crimes I’ve committed. It has always been the only constant in my ever changing life. Whether I am trying to do good things or willingly committing atrocities that axe is with me. Even though I am no longer able to wield it the axe watches over me. I know that it is not alive, that it is merely an object I used to kill, I feel as though it has witnessed me at my lowest in a way no sentient being ever could. I have never treated it as anything more than an object but I am privately thankful that it is the one thing I have had my entire life.


	3. The fight that changed everything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A seemingly normal street fight for gold goes wrong in so many ways and Ivan finds himself fighting for his life for the first time. He would never be able to forget the fear he felt, or the amazing shot of adrenaline he experienced after

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Graphic depictions of violence and descriptions of a brainwashed individual. Basically no one in this fic is a good person.

In the years I spent executing my revenge I witnessed a lot of suffering, both created by my hand and created by the corrupt system we live in. I earned money by participating in street fights where rich men bet on who would win. If I prevailed, I was paid a decent portion of all the bets placed on me. If I lost, I returned home with nothing to show for it but bruises and blood. 

It was an acceptable deal for me. I thrived in combat. It is easier for me to fight, to rely on only my instincts and muscle memory. Fighting is so much more simple than regular living. There’s no time for emotion or remorse, especially when the target is fighting back. I often came out victorious, but there were a few times that I returned to wherever I was staying and had to treat my own injuries with an almost bare medical kit. Recently I’ve lived in a somewhat comfortable situation thanks to my days as a freelance quester, but I still vividly temper how it feels to be unable to afford basic medical equipment. I was never very fond of stealing, and never very good at it without threatening or fighting involved. So often I would sacrifice other supplies to use as makeshift bandages. I was never very good at stitches either. 

The time I spent street fighting wasn’t very glamorous. It wasn’t fair, it was dirty and you fought like a dying beast. Every breath was painful, every single moment of the fight was tense and felt like it tore at your control. I will never forget the first time a betting match turned into a fight to the death. My opponent was a female orc, clearly altered in some way and forced to fight. I’m not sure how they broke her, how they twisted her into a dog that knew only murder. She was single minded, and clearly didn’t enjoy the fight. She did it out of necessity, and necessity said that I had to die in order for her to win. 

Fighting her was painful and bloody. I vividly remember walking into the arena expecting to see another man like me, a creature who would rather fight for money than do honest labor. When I saw the look in her eyes I felt fear for the first time since my mother had forced me to kill Hope. She was vicious, practically frothing at the mouth and sniffing for blood. In that moment I desperately wanted to back out of the fight.

But then she lunged at me. She was taller, stronger. I was barely halfway to being an adult at 8 years, but I was tall and muscular for my age. But I was distinctly aware of the height and weight differences between us. Her muscles bulged as she grabbed for me with bare hands. She had no weapon other than her razor sharp teeth, and she clearly had no problems using them. I evaded her for a few minutes that felt like years before she grabbed my axe and used it to fling me into the wall enclosing the arena. I was distinctly aware that this could be the moment I died, not even an adult and not even halfway to fulfilling my revenge. But I got up as she approached me. I got up and I bared my teeth and I breathed. It felt like both the first time and the last time I had ever used my lungs. But from my venom glands came a thick cloud of purple mist, surrounding her in a deadly embrace. She didn’t try to hold her breath and before she could take more than three steps she was falling and choking on her own blood as the venom tore into the delicate tissue of her lungs. 

I had never felt so immensely terrified in my life. I had known I was venomous before, but it seemed unnatural for me to use that as a weapon. I was so used to using my strength to kill. Somehow I felt even more like a monster than before. Like I was made with the sole purpose of harming people. I was paid well and left feeling like there was a lump of steel in my throat. After that I took to stealing from anyone and everyone to avoid another fight like that. For an entire year I didn’t kill anyone, just lived day to day and made sure I had the bare minimum. But I couldn’t stray long from my dream of revenge, and soon returned to violence as my comfort.


	4. The return to cruelty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peace doesn’t last very long for a man like Ivan. His need for revenge often overrides any desire to get better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is extremely dark and depicts Ivan killing with no remorse (at the time) as well as enjoying the suffering of his victims. Not for the faint of heart

During the year I spent with a relatively clean conscience was spent with a constant itch for revenge. Although the fight had shaken me up, it was not enough to deter me from craving the death of my tribe. I was distinctly aware every second of every day that while I was hiding from myself there were murders being committed by my people for no reason other than that it amuses them. I hadn’t decided to go back to my old ways until I visited Hope again and realized that I had promised to avenge him no matter what it took, and that in a way I was being a coward about my own desires. 

I spent an extra day sitting by my old companion’s grave with no rest before leaving. I had been gathering information on my tribe for a while in order to enact my revenge, but every day spent with members alive felt like another gouge in my tattered soul. I soon began my spree of murders. 

The first murder outside my direct family is the only one that I remember with any sort of clarity, other than the first time I took the life of a child outside of the control of my mother. I decided to choose my targets by the severity of their misdeeds, rather than how convenient it was to murder them at the time I’m choosing my target. 

My first target wasn’t anything like I expected they would be. She was a warlord in the far north, with many children and husbands. I decided that although I think killing the most evil first was important, I would proceed to take out the rest of her bloodline for the sake of time and ease. 

The day itself seemed rather unimportant but it sticks with me to this day. It was slightly cloudy and had just recently stopped raining. The cobblestone was slick and shiny with moisture, water still dripping from the edges of roofs. It felt so ordinary and boring but I knew that today would be the first of many successful hunts. I was permitted entry into her castle of sorts freely. After all, we came from the same ancestral tribe. She looked down upon me with a smug smile. 

“I’ve heard of you, Ivan” she purred deep in her chest, probably trying to sound alluring or dominating. I didn’t much care for her tone, or how she mispronounced my name as eye-van. She probably didn’t even know how to speak draconian. 

“And what have you heard of me, my liege?” I asked, indulging her desire to brag about her knowledge of my sins and motives. I didn’t really care what she thought she knew about me, or if she thought she had the upper hand in this conversation. 

“Many things, dear, many things. I’ve heard how you killed your own parents, fought in back allies for years, stole instead of making an honest living,” she replied with such a condescending lilt, as if she were any better. 

“Do you honestly believe, my liege, that my sins outweigh your own?” I inquired in a voice that could almost be deemed polite. But among my people politeness didn’t really matter. 

“I think that you lower yourself too much. You could be like me, have your own empire and your own ants to control and step on as you wish,” she laughed. “But you play at some sort of justice, like stealing and killing to live is any better than stealing and killing for fun.” She gestured the guards out of the room lazily, as if they were useless to her. This was her first of many mistakes. “I know what you’re playing at, child. You want to kill those that you believe to be more evil than yourself in a charade of redemption” she talked as if she knew how I think, how I justify my sins to myself when I lay in bed at night. She was wrong. 

“Well I think that you don’t know a single thing about me. I’m not playing a game of redemption. I’m playing a game of revenge.” A downright wicked smile split my face and I hefted my axe over my shoulder. “Are you going to fight back? It’s much more fun when they struggle, don’t you agree?” 

She seemed shocked by my answer but didn’t hesitate to grab her sword in response. She clearly didn’t think I had any chance of winning, as she was ten years my senior and well into adulthood. But I was fast and smart and she was arrogant. I made the first move, as I often do. She blocked the heavy swing of my axe with a quiet grunt before shoving back. I moved with the momentum and swung back for her head with the wicked sharp edge of my axeblade. She ducked, her sword coming to cover the top of her head in case it came close enough to hit. 

I found myself enjoying the game of cat and mouse. It was probably the darkest time of my life, where I genuinely enjoyed watching my victims fight for their lives. She was older, but I was taller and stronger and weighed much more. She seemed to think that she could use my stamina against me, but I had hardened every aspect of my combat and learned how to cover for every weakness no matter how minor. 

I heaved my axe in a great arc, letting her dodge before throwing the weight to the side and knocking her to the ground with the flat face of my weapon. It was a hard trick to pull off, but she fell for it easily. She had fallen to the ground and was struggling to recover from a direct hit from the considerable weight of the metal. 

“You thought wrong when you assumed that it would be easy to defeat me. You’ve spent years merely controlling an army, while I have been fighting and improving nonstop for most of those years,” I laughed as she slowly got to her feet. She took me letting her up as a mistake, but I wouldn’t let her live long enough to take advantage. “I will wipe you and every member of your family from this earth” I promised and she was clearly shocked and terrified as I cleaved her head from her shoulders. Her head falling to the ground is permanently seared into my mind as one of the many times I enjoyed cruelty in a way no one should ever enjoy it. Her blood spread across the floor in a large puddle and her head laid motionless a little ways away. I watched for a few moments that felt like ages before kicking her skull away like trash and listening to the bone shatter upon impact with her empty throne. I then turned and sought out the rest of my victims.

After that things got a little less clear, a little easier to let go of. I wandered the castle and chopped the heads off of every single one of her children even if they cried in terror. Then I wandered the village covered in their blood until I found her parents. They were old, and seemed to have accepted their fate. When I asked them why they were so resigned, they said that they would be punished for their crimes one day. I kept that in my mind for a few brief days after beheading them. But it was easy to forget. After the first death it seemed like a haze of gore and anger. The village was both relieved and terrified when I told them I had killed the warlord and that they were free to take whatever money I hadn’t taken for myself. I had no need for the amount of gold she kept in her castle, and now she didn’t either.


	5. Revenge is forever incomplete

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He killed every member of his tribe, but did he really rid the world of the tribe’s evil if he’s still living?

I don’t recall the years I spent hunting down my tribe with any sort of clarity. It’s nothing but a haze of gore, anger, and the thrill of getting back at those who I perceived as deserving. Nothing about that point in my life was pretty or worth looking back on. I didn’t show any kindness and in return no kindness was shown to me. I left no member of the Agkistrodon alive, even children that had done nothing wrong. At the time it had almost felt like mercy, but I was lying to myself. They could have been happy, they could have lived their lives without hurting anyone. But I didn’t want them to turn out like me, or their parents, or any of the other members of the tribe. 

By the time I had finally gotten my revenge, I was eleven years old. I had spent almost all my life hunting, forced to grow up faster than should be possible. I still wonder if something had altered how fast I matured. At eleven years old I was nothing but a husk of a person. I didn’t know what to do with myself now that my tribe was dead. I decided to go back to Hope’s grave. I sat beside him and I told him the tale of my revenge. I wondered if he would be disappointed in who I had become. It was a hard question to ask myself. 

“What do I do now? I’ve sold my soul in the name of revenge, killed innocents to make sure that no one was left. I feel empty. I wish I had just run away. You and me, living as far from here as possible. Maybe one day I’ll be able to have another friend. But I don’t think I’ll ever be worthy.” I remember vividly saying those words to the empty air. I missed having someone to love and comfort me. 

“Hope, do you think that I should have died with them? I’m continuing the legacy of violence and bloodshed. Until my death there is still someone left to hurt people. Until my death the world will never be free of the Agkistrodon. I don’t really want to hurt innocents, but I don’t know how to fix myself. I’m broken and I don’t know how to use my power for anything but evil. I’m desperately lonely though. I wish I could see you,” I had said in the peaceful dark of the night. 

That day was one of the very few that I can still describe in vivid detail. Writing this journal has been difficult. I find myself struggling to fit all of the important things in. I can’t remember all of my victims, and each of them should be mentioned. But it’s impossible to count the number of lives I have ended for my own selfish goals. I hope that the handful of events I can depict in this journal are enough to uncover my feelings and motives, enough to put my sins to rest in this world and allow me to pass into my eternal punishment with a somewhat clear consciousness. 

Although there’s not much to say about this particular day, I still feel that is important for me to express that I never got true revenge. Hope’s murderer is still alive, and he has lived on for many years since Hope’s death. Looking back, nothing was worth the disappointment I feel in myself now that I think about Hope.


	6. Akkar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ivan meeting Akkar was truly a change for the better. But would the good times last?

I don’t think I have encountered anyone as genuinely good as Akkar. Akkar was an elf that I met shortly after I came back to live in my old town after my revenge. He seemed fairly average, except for his two different eyes. One was like jade, the other sapphire. It struck me as odd when I first met him, like two different souls saw right through me to the evil corruptness within. He was so perfect that it was unbelievable. He had a good sense of morals, and he upheld his code even if it was inconvenient. He never killed another sentient being, even if making an effort to subdue them instead of going for the kill could cost him his life. I met him at a time in my life that was relatively mellow. I lived in the forest off the bare minimum and only visited town to purchase supplies I couldn’t acquire in the wild. 

Akkar found me on one such trip and asked me why I was living in the forest when there was housing available. I shrugged and replied that I didn’t have a job or belong in town and he offered a spot beside him in the royal guard. This struck me as particularly strange. This man who I had never met before was offering me a comfortable job protecting the king for no other reason than to help me. I decided that I didn’t have anything better to do and agreed to work with him. It baffled me how he seemed genuinely delighted by my acceptance. It dawned upon me that this man was free from the corruption I had suffered and I swore to myself that I would keep it that way. 

Akkar took to keeping me company whether I particularly wanted it or not. He accompanied me to training, to my runs, to every meal of every day except Sunday. I asked him why and he laughed and said “don’t think you’re more important than church!” And against all odds I found myself becoming fond of him. I began to look forward to our time spent together, and miss his presence in the moments we were apart. Akkar wasn’t particularly fond of taking lives, even when his job demanded it. Whenever I saw him falter I was there to have his back. He didn’t seem to question why I was so willing to kill for him, just smiled oddly and thanked me. 

Almost as if in exchange, when I felt the hatred build into a need to murder, he would watch me for a few moments. He would then decide based on factors I still can’t figure out what I needed most at that time. He was never once wrong. Sometimes it was silence with him sitting just close enough for me to hear his quiet breathing and know that someone was accepting me in that moment. Sometimes it was to go to the training grounds and fight, clean and with no weapons. It was hard to get used to Akkar. His support was seemingly endless despite his lack of understanding in regards to my motives or feelings. He seemed to think that I was capable of being a good person. I’m not sure why he believed in me, or why I tried to be a good person for him. 

It lasted three almost perfect years. By Akkar’s side, it was easy to ignore the looks I got from people who knew what I had done. Akkar treated me like I deserved kindness against all odds. It was refreshing and liberating to have someone who cared for me. I can’t say that I didn’t do bad things during those three years, but it was always so that Akkar didn’t have to. It felt better doing those things for someone else instead of doing them for myself. 

The peace didn’t last. I was accused of a lot of horrible things and my reputation plummeted. Akkar was convinced that I was innocent, convinced that I didn’t deserve prosecution. I wonder what he would have said in that moment if I had told him the truth. That even if I didn’t do the things I was accused of I had done much worse in the past. 

It didn’t matter in the end. I got restless. Felt ashamed that I was playing the good guy when I was just a monster parading around with a fancy crest on his armor. I told Akkar I was leaving. That I couldn’t stand the prosecution, couldn’t stand these people treating me like a monster. In reality, I couldn’t stand myself for pretending to be a good person. Akkar begged me to stay, said he’d do anything to convince them I was innocent. I looked at him and it felt like there was a lump of steel in my throat. 

I said to him on that starless night “Akkar, you are the most genuine person I have ever met. Not once have you killed, no matter how dangerous the situation. Many times I have willingly taken that burden from you. And many more times would I do it again. Your soul is so bright, and my blackness dims its light. I don’t deserve your kindness or compassion. Maybe if we had met sooner you could have saved me. For you I will stay one more day” 

He clearly planned to convince me to stay and mentioned it many times. I very carefully slipped away while he was cleaning up after a training session and killed one of our fellow guards, one that had very openly hated Akkar for supporting me. I knew that naturally the conclusion would be that Akkar killed him, and I allowed that to happen. When he was accused I slipped away while he was trying to argue his innocence. I wish I had just begged him to come with me, live on the run like a criminal. I’m not sure what happened to him after that, but I am sure that he is alive. If he ever reads this, because surely he will live on long after me, I want him to know that his kindness is unforgettable. I do not know if I am able to feel love, but if I am it was surely Akkar that was the one capable of stealing my heart. I wish I could say goodbye to him. 

I don’t think it is time yet for me to address the things I want to say to him, or how I have felt about his absence all these years. I want for him to be the last thing I write about, the last thing I think of before I die. There are too many words left to begin that now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Akkar is going to be mentioned many times in the future. Although Ivan feels remorse for the things he’s done, he didn’t have any intention to truly better himself before he met Akkar. After he left all he could think of was how Akkar would want him to do good...


	7. A betrayal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ivan makes a deal with a very unfortunate women

After I left Akkar I felt as though I needed to hide. It seemed like a good idea at the time to slip into the mafia and let them make me disappear. It was easy at first, act as a bodyguard or peddle illegal goods. Those things were simple and I didn’t have to feel bad about them. When they demanded me to torture for them, I obeyed. I could have made the choice to leave, but I felt almost safe surrounded by people who weren’t phased by the things I had done. I willingly did a lot of things I now regret for validation from the people that had housed me for those long years. It felt almost mundane. Again violence had become a fact of my life, a simple not quite necessity that was easier to go along with than to avoid. I locked up my emotions again for a very long time. Thinking about Akkar was painful, and I had met someone who was able to take care of that for me. 

Her name was Belladonna and I have never once felt an ounce of compassion for her. Nevertheless I worked by her side and did as she asked of me. She wanted someone to control, and I discovered that her torture was a new kind of freedom. 

Almost every night she would come into my room. She would pull off my shirt and I would sit on a stool while she circled around me. There was nothing sexual about these times. Just pain and a dark sense of relief and satisfaction. I was at her mercy, in a way. Willingly. Those nights she would watch as I settled down on the stool before coming up to me with a small dagger. She would slide her fingers over my horns and ask in a disgustingly sweet voice. “Don’t you need me? Need the pain, the punishment? You’re a monster, Ivan. You deserve this. To be cut open every night. Don’t you want to atone for your sins?” 

She would start over my shoulder blades. Light touches at first until I started to relax. As the tension bled away she would dig her blade in and pull downward, carving easily into my flesh. I had learned to breathe through it. Learned to relax into the pain, pay more attention to the feeling of blood dripping off my skin than the way she got off on it. The pain was freeing. She was right when she said that I wanted to atone for my sins. I wanted to be punished because I was too weak to punish myself. She would cut me open for hours, enough to hurt but not bleed heavily. Then she would lick up the blood and leave me to patch myself up. 

I’m not proud of those nights. I’m not proud of being desperate for something to make me feel less remorse. I wish that I hadn’t hit that kind of low, but it’s too late to make a difference now. The thing I regret most is that I betrayed Akkar. He was nice to me, helped me find redemption because he thought I deserved it and not because it meant he could hurt me. I left him and instead of going back I let Belladonna hurt me over and over in hopes one day that the remorse would go away forever or that I would finally bleed out.

It’s hard talking about those moments. I don’t know if I’d say they’re my darkest, but they were certainly my most vulnerable times. Where I let someone use me just to feel a tiny bit of relief from my sins. Belladonna was a poison and I’m glad that she’s gone. 

She had taken me on a spy as her bodyguard. At this point I was rather complacent to her desires. I didn’t have anything to live for but pain and suffering. We were sent to an enemy who was well known for enjoying the company of pretty women and occasionally men. It wasn’t really in my taste to pretend to be a whore, but I also didn’t feel any need to argue. No one was going to want me, since I could clearly snap them like a twig if they upset me. I watched as she leaned for the table, talking to the handsome mob boss. I watched as the magic that kept her disguise slipped away. I couldn’t help but smile as she was grabbed by the hair and her throat was slit open. I watched as blood spurted from her neck, covering the ground as the boss threw her down like a piece of trash. When everyone turned to me I bared my fangs and said “I’ll be going now. If you don’t agree, feel free to inhale my venom” and that was it. I left without her body and I didn’t return to the mafia we had worked for. I don’t mourn her death or the relief her blade gave me. She didn’t mean anything to me because I didn’t mean anything to her. It was a simple game we played, where we both got what we wanted and we both walked away at the end. Except she didn’t exactly walk away after that failed mission. I can’t bring myself to be upset about it even now.


	8. A return to normalcy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ivan meets a new ally. He isn’t sure why he helps this stranger out, or spends so long making the tiefling’s happy ending come true.

Being a freelance quester isn’t always good, and it isn’t always bad. My partner and I were known for doing whatever we were asked for the right amount of money, so we got approached by individuals with both good and bad intentions. I did more good for others in that thirty years than I ever thought I was capable of doing. 

It first began when I met a tiefling named Tempest. He was average looking, fairly tall but not very muscular. Clearly a magic user. It fit me just fine when we found ourselves stuck as a team. We argued at first. I didn’t trust him, he didn’t trust me. Tempest was interesting, to say the least. He was particularly fond of spells that were explosive or caused fires. He was an oddity, much like Akkar was. Weeks into our journey he admitted to me that he didn’t know anything about who he was other than his name. I told him that in exchange for companionship and watching my back during jobs, I would figure out what he was like before he lost his memories. That was the kindest thing I have ever done in my life, and I’m not sure why I offered. Maybe because he reminded me of Akkar and I wanted to pay back a favor. I’m not sure. 

In the first year we spent most of our time making ourselves known as reliable questers. Tempest did the talking, and I was there to be someone who was clearly capable of defeating enemies. On the side, I looked into Tempest’s previous life. It was slow going, especially at first. Everything was mostly rumors based on what people had seen of him at the time. But in between quests I exhausted every source of information I could get my hands on. It took ten years total to find anything solid enough to follow. A connection to a sister. I decided to send her a letter and ask if she was related to Tempest. I did not want to disappoint him if it was a false lead. 

His sister penned back almost immediately. She said that she had been looking for him but it was like he disappeared. Nobody acknowledged her when she asked where he had gone. I reassured her that although Tempest had no memories, he was in one piece. I promised to bring him home and the next day I told Tempest that I had a vacation planned for us. It was very far away (as he had seemly landed in a completely different continent). He reluctantly agreed but with the condition that they would continue to do quests as they made their way over. Tempest insisted that it was too far to just travel there. So over the next three years we traveled to an island seemingly only inhabited by sunflowers. We encountered demons, and mind controlling mist, and mimics pretending to be signs. The most memorable quest for me was setting Tempest on fire to escape a monster made of pure darkness. I look back on that moment fondly. 

When we finally arrived on the island Tempest was clearly confused. “Have I been here before?” He asked, cautiously. I shrugged. 

“I dunno. C’mon, we were invited here ages ago,” I had insisted. As soon as we got through the first few feet of sunflowers we looked up and suddenly there was a large castle with a village scattered around it. I gave Tempest a look and dragged him inside the castle. 

When he saw his sister a sudden realization dawned on him. “I know you. You’re from before I lost my memories.” He was clearly shocked. She nodded and told him that she was his sister, and she had been looking for him for twenty years. When she hugged him it was like everything came back at once and I felt like I was intruding on something very personal. But I also realized that I just changed two people’s lives for the better. There was no reward other than their reunion. 

After that I left. I spent the rest of my life until now living in a cabin in the woods as far away as possible from the places I spent the beginning of my life in. It was peaceful. Nobody bothered me and I didn’t bother them. I was allowed to do whatever I pleased out there, and I eventually discovered that a small faerie was watching me. I told her my life story and I haven’t seen her since that day. I hope that she doesn’t feel grief over my ever approaching death.


	9. The final message

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ivan writes his final entry; a goodbye to a love he desperately wished to see before he died.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Major character death and heavy feels

I feel as though it has taken eternity to write my life story down, and now I am at the point where I am ready to move on. Throughout writing I have thought about the impacts of every single event I have immortalized in ink. I feel as though I failed to mention how heavily Akkar’s absence weighed on my soul. I tried not to let my regret of that loss overweigh the telling of the physical events that happened in the years that I lived without him. Now I am on the last few pages of this journal and I hope that someday Akkar will be able to read it. 

I feel as though no words in any language could ever express the things I am feeling as I wait for death. That no amount of time would be long enough to write everything I feel about Akkar down. Over the years I have come to realize that I love him. There has never been anyone in my life as kind and compassionate as Akkar. I wanted these last moments to be filled with nothing but the warm feeling I get when I think of him, the happiness I get from remembering the time we spent together. I’m sure you have noticed by now that the last page is full of drawings of Akkar. When I started writing about the day I met him I was struck by the overwhelming need to see his face, even if it was just a recreation by my hand. I hope that I captured his beauty accurately, that I showed the brightness of his smile and the sparkle of his eyes when he looked at me after a day just sitting in the garden. I know that there is no way I could possibly recreate his breathtaking energy in a drawing, no matter how lifelike. Something about his presence can’t be put into words or recreated by charcoal or ink or paint. During the time I spent alone I learned how to make paints from the wildlife. I admit that I painted many of my memories in an effort to recall them more clearly. Over half of the memories that I recreated on canvas were from those years that I spent by Akkar’s side. 

I never got to tell him that I love him, and I doubt that he will ever see this journal. But I will address this page to him anyway, because I think he deserves his own story. 

Akkar, the day I met you changed my life. It changed who I was and who I became. I can’t help but believe that you lessened my burden, made me a better person with your kindness and your support. You were kind to me for no other reason than because you thought it could help me. You were the first person to show compassion to me. You also showed me a part of myself that I didn’t know existed, and you continued to show me the good things I could do even when you were not physically there. I have missed you all of these years and I hope that you are well. I have missed your shining eyes, your heartwarming smile, the creases you get when I said something you thought was stupid. 

When I left you I knew that there was nothing I wouldn’t do for you if I were able. I thought about all the things I wouldn’t hesitate to do if it were you asking, whether I wanted them for myself or not. I wish I had known at the time that I was capable of being good like you wanted me to be. I wish that I had known that I could grow into something better for you. I wish you were here. I wish that you would walk in right now and I would suddenly hear your voice and see you again. 

I wish I hadn’t wasted so much time running away from what we could have had. I’ll never get my happy ending because I was too scared of hurting you. 

I know that soon I will descend into hell for my punishment. This has been a fact of my life for a very long time, and I have not tried to fight it. My punishment in hell is the least my victims deserve. I am willing to suffer so that they have justice. I hope that one day my soul will be cleansed by the torture. That I will be able to exist peacefully again, even if I cannot return to your side. 

There is nothing I want more than to here you say goodbye. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for your forgiveness, even if I don’t deserve it. No length I wouldn’t go to earn your love the right way. In this moment, as I watch my last sunrise, I miss you with every fiber of my being. Now I will close my eyes and imagine your smile until my last breath leaves my lungs. I hope that you find this, Akkar. I hope that you finally know how much I love you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stay tuned for a bonus chapter in a few days


	10. I’m here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A letter to Ivan from akkar

Ivan, I’m sure you can imagine my surprise when I was summoned by a little faerie. She told me of your retirement, and how that all you wanted in your last moments was to see me. 

Oh how I wish I would have been able to fulfill that desire. I arrived here shortly after you had left. Reading your journal made me feel like my soul had been rubbed raw and exposed to the air. I had never known so deeply and so confidently that you loved me, and that I am proud of you. 

Sitting here next to your bed and writing you this letter is heart wrenching. You will never come to know that I forgive you. That I had forgiven you the moment I knew how much you regretted what you had done. I knew you had changed, but I was scared that you had moved on. I have heard about all the beautiful things you have accomplished and the way you have grown. I wished I had reached out to you before you had passed. 

I want everyone to know that I loved you, Ivan Zakhaev. My reckless, stupid, chaotic first love who framed me for murder and ran off because he was scared of committment. I have never been so undeniably fond of another being in my entire life.

So I’m here. I might not have gotten to say goodbye, but I will put you to rest. And I will live here, where you have lived, and I will continue living as if you are coming home. I very much hope that by the time I pass away, you will have been redeemed. You only have a hundred years, so I suggest you hurry if you want to greet me at the gates of my afterlife. 

Before I sign off I would like to write down my fondest memory of us together for whoever decides to read this in the future. 

Ivan, you never did mention that you were the one following me around. You always have been slow to admit the truth about how you feel. My fondest memory is the day you told me about your childhood. You led me by the hand to Hope’s grave and I held you in my arms as you cried for the first time in years. I have never seen you so open and vulnerable, begging to be seen. That was the day that I knew I could never be scared of you. 

I used to find you so intimidating. Seven feet of muscle, with giant horns and teeth spattered with purple markings. But in reality, you’re just a person. A person who’s been twisted and hurt and who has hurt in return, but a person nonetheless. But after that day I looked at you and realized that you would never put your hands on me to hurt me. I’m sure you would do anything in your power to prevent me from being hurt. And as you finally pulled away to just sit, hand in hand beside Hope’s grave, I knew that you were capable of being good. I knew it deep in my soul like I know that my name is Akkar. It’s impossible to ignore my love for you, especially now. 

I’m here. I’m here, and I forgive you for all the things you’ve done. It’s not my place to forgive, but I refuse to be the one who punishes you for the things you regret and wish you could fix. There is nothing I wouldn’t do to be able to let you know that I forgive you. I love you and I forgive you. Sincerely, Akkar


End file.
